According to a 2006 bilateral agreement that was reaffirmed in early 2009 by an outbound LDP government, the US would relocate some 8,000 US Marines plus their dependents to Guam, while vacating Futenma for a replacement facility built at Henoko Bay near Camp Schwab, another Marine base. While in opposition, the DPJ drafted an ‘Okinawa vision’ paper that called for a process of moving the air base out of Okinawa, and then out of the country. While the DPJ backed away from this program in its electoral manifesto—where, in addition to calling for an equal relationship with the US, it promised only that it would ‘review’ the agreement on the realignment of US forces in Japan—the new Hatoyama government, pressed by the Obama administration to accept the agreement or provide a viable alternative, struggled for months to find an alternative as the Okinawan people demonstrated against the Marines staying in their prefecture and as Washington worried about former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama’s ‘dithering.’
At the end of May, Hatoyama ultimately decided to accept a modified version of the original agreement, with the exact details about the replacement facility to be hammered out in negotiations with the US.
It is a matter of opinion whether that decision marks the failure of the DPJ’s promise of a more equal relationship or a step in the right direction as the government was able, despite US pressure, to conduct a review of a controversial policy on its own timeline. However, there were worrying signs for Japan’s future in the DPJ government’s approach to the Futenma dispute. Even as the government debated a policy matter with implications for US deterrent power in the region, and therefore Japan’s security, it rarely couched its arguments in these terms, despite an audience in Washington that thinks almost entirely in these terms. It was only late in the review process, when it appeared that the government was preparing to accept the existing agreement, that the prime minister began talking about the deterrent capabilities of the Marines—at which point few were convinced by the argument.
The vast distance separating the US military from all other militaries, including those of its allies, means that there really is no such thing as an equal security relationship with the US. However, if Japan is going to disagree with the US constructively—a Japan that can say ‘No, but…’—its leaders must be able to speak the language of realpolitik convincingly. By being unable to articulate Japan’s security policy independent on the US, its leaders remain dependent on the US.
The DPJ government is not the first Japanese government to struggle with this problem. Ishiba Shigeru, a leading LDP politician who has twice served as minister for defence, writes in his book of politicians uninterested in national defence, criticising fellow LDP members for focusing only on the size of the defence budget and not on why Japan has a defence budget in the first place. Japanese leaders, to say nothing of the public, have long been insulated from the Self-Defence forces of which they were nominally in charge.
Accordingly, any discussion of Japan’s taking greater responsibility for its own defence—especially spending more on the SDF—must begin with changing Japanese security discourse. The Japanese public and its representatives have to first understand the value of the SDF before they will comfortably support more defence spending or new roles for the SDF.
It is questionable, however, whether the rising generation of Japanese politicians is any more capable of articulating Japanese security policy before the Japanese public and in dialogue with the US. Although a number of taboos surrounding discussions of security policy appear to have fallen, what Ishiba points to as the obsession with the cost of national defence may prove to be more resilient, particularly as Japan faces its mounting debt and its aging population. It may take more than mere sabre-rattling by China or North Korea to change this underlying brake on the development of a Japanese ‘security consciousness’.
This is an article from the most recent edition of the East Asia Forum Quarterly: ‘Next generation on Asia’.
Harris has a point in inviting Japanese policy makers to clarify their position. At the moment, Japan’s SDF are constrained by Article 9. Pacifist norms are strong in Japan, but by hosting U.S. military Japan is virtually hiring mercenaries to do its dirty work.
On the other hand, Japan is constrained by its imperial legacy in the region. Japanese politicians cannot say out loud: “China poses a threat to our national security and that’s why we need to become a ‘normal state’ amend the Constitution and transform the SDF.”
Edward Lincoln appealed to the Department of Defence for realizing that “the strategic importance [of Marine Corps Air Station Futenma] is somewhat exaggerated” and stressed the need for compromise (November 13th, 2009). So what the Japanese c o u l d do is arguing that the region is in fact through economic interdepence relatively stable and the helicopter base at Nago would be superfluous. This would, of course, be a first step only. The U.S. must rethink its blind activism and growing military presence in the region, too.
I would say the entrenched elites, re-entrenched after the “Reverse Course” of the post-war reforms, represented by the LDP have a policy of seeking to increase weaponization and it would be wiser to pursue strategies that don’t involve saying things publicly like “China poses a threat to our national security and that’s why we need to become a ‘normal state’ amend the constitution and transform the SDF.”
It seems that they choose to challenge the US or flame fear of the Chinese threat as it allows them to follow their own strategies. That being the case, I see the US issue not able to be utilized as a foundation for policies to increase arms as effectively as the China threat. Whether reconstructing a military, which I feel is a decision for the Japanese people to decide, is a top priority of Japanese leaders is up for debate, they certainly are not leading on advancing any non-violent ideologies.